Eating their words

Néstor Kirchner, the country’s then president, oversaw a deal to restructure some $82 billion in bonds on which the country had defaulted four years earlier.  The government offered new bonds worth only about 35% of the old ones.  The government managed to sell bonds worth $8.5 billion in the local market and $7.6 billion to Venezuela, despite in some cases at high interest rates.  Through this process, the government tried to make peace with international capital markets.  Kirchner's wife, Cristina Fernandez, who succeeded him in 2007, wants to make peace with the bondholders. At her request, Congress lifted the ban on reopening the debt restructuring.  It will be interesting to see how the situation works out by 2011, Fernandez's last year of the term.